


Plumbing Problems

by highlightcity_159



Series: The House Husband Interludes (featuring a not-so-house wife) [3]
Category: The Old Guard (Movie 2020)
Genre: Andy is mad, Booker and Joe make a mess, Don't know what to tag this, F/F, F/M, Joe and Quynh have their minds in the gutter, M/M, Not Beta Read, and Nile just wants to use an indoor toliet, another one for you
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-09-19
Updated: 2020-09-19
Packaged: 2021-03-07 15:53:33
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,599
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26550193
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/highlightcity_159/pseuds/highlightcity_159
Summary: All Nile wanted was a hot shower.
Relationships: Andy | Andromache of Scythia/Quynh | Noriko, Booker | Sebastien le Livre/Nile Freeman, Joe | Yusuf Al-Kaysani/Nicky | Nicolò di Genova
Series: The House Husband Interludes (featuring a not-so-house wife) [3]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1919809
Comments: 20
Kudos: 218





	Plumbing Problems

**Author's Note:**

> The fics in this series were supposed to be under 1000 words but this one got away from me. 
> 
> [Feel free to send me prompt ideas on tumblr.](https://www.tumblr.com/blog/highlightcity159)

They were laying low in Cape Town after a job in Osaka went FUBAR. Copley IV was handling clean-up but had asked them to lay low for a few months. They were staying at an old safe house outside Cape Town, one the family hadn’t been to since before Nile joined them. They spent most of the first few days cleaning and doing repairs to make the farmhouse livable. It was tedious work but now Nile could walk around without worry about getting tetanus. 

She, Quynh, and Joe were returning from a trip to the grocery store. The three of them, less fond of the manual labor involved in serious home repairs, had opted to go pick up food, clothes, linens, and other housewares while the others worked through a couple of plumbing issues. The kitchen was in working order and Nicky and Booker were working on the bathroom. Nile was very much looking forward to showering in a real shower and not outside by the well. 

She would probably be waiting a few more days for that indoor shower if the scene they stumble upon is any indicator. 

There is a small pool of water covering the floor of the kitchen. Andy has a towel slung over her shoulder. Her hair is wet and plastered to her forehead and she’s yelling at both Booker and Nicky while brandishing what looks like an old, rusted industrial wrench. Her grey tank top is soaked through revealing the utilitarian black bra she is wearing underneath. It’s summer time in Cape Town so Andy has taken to wearing shorts and her long legs are still damp from whatever plumbing problem had occurred. 

Quynh watches on with a smug smirk and Nile has to role her eyes. Quynh is not subtle about how much she loves angry and in-charge Andy. Given the way the Quynh is tracking the water dripping down from Andy’s hair along the column of her neck, Nile has a feeling that she will be finding something to do away from the house this afternoon. Andy and Quynh can get very loud. 

Nicky is no better. He’s propped up against the kitchen counter with a faint blush across his cheeks. He is chagrined, chin tucked in and eyes in the ground as he nods along to Andy’s lecture. He is just as wet as Andy with his t-shirt sticking to him and the socks he’s wearing are completely soaked through. His hair is wet but unlike Andy’s hair which lays flat, his is spiked up in all different directions like he’s been running his hands through it. Nicky like Andy is in shorts and his legs are damp, water making the dark hair stand out against his tanned skin. 

She can feel Joe beside her radiating lustful energy. Every version of Nicky is his favorite but she knows that he enjoys when those rather rare blushes bless Nicky’s skin. She can already picture the worshipful odes Joe is writing in his head in honor of that blush. Nicky wearing shorts is a rarity and Nile can assume without looking that Joe has latched on to the way Nicky’s calves bulge slightly as he shifts on his feet. 

Booker clearly took the brunt of the water because he is completely soaked. He looks like a drowned rat but also kind of adorable, like one of those animated rats from that old Disney movie Ratatouille. Booker is eyeing the wrench in Andy’s hand warily from his place on the floor, leaning tiredly on his propped up right leg. His black t-shirt is plastered to his chest and leaves very little to the imagination. His jeans are also soaked, un-helped by the fact that he is sitting in the puddle. 

As Nile watches the way his arms strain to pull himself into standing position. She amends her first observation, not quite a drowned rat, more like Daniel Craig emerging from the ocean as James Bond in Casino Royale. Maybe she can find a pair of blue swim trunks like those Craig wore and convince Booker to go to the beach with her. Imaging Booker bursting out of the ocean, water clinging to his broad chest and shoulders is _almost_ enough to distract her from the situation at hand. 

However, Nile’s desire to live in a place with working plumbing and electricity outweighs her considerable lust for her partner. She sighs realizing that the other two are more than content to continue to watch the scene in front of them unfold. And while she can appreciate the way Booker’s hair looks all wet now that he’s grown it out from his buzz cut, she was really hoping to not have to use the latrine again. It was gross and her fear of spiders hadn’t lessened since she gained immortality. 

“What happened?” She asks Andy setting her bags down on the dining room table and trying to avoid the water. 

“This Мудак clogged the kitchen sink.” She said gesturing at Booker in annoyance. “ _And_ Nicky forgot to turn off the pump before he tried to help fix it.” 

So much for dinner. They’re going to need to get the standing water out of kitchen before they can check on the sink. It’s going to take a while given the size of the kitchen and with the way Quynh and Joe are chomping at the bit she doubts that the other four will be of any help, at least not for a few hours. Another sigh as she realizes they’ll need to go into town to get a pump because she has no plans to spend her afternoon with a bucket dumping water out the window while listening to other people have sex. 

“Now we have to start over in the kitchen. It’s going to take hours to fix this mess and we haven’t even finished the bathroom.” Nile worries about the way Andy is holding the wrench and the rage starting to build in her voice. She really does not want to deal with an annoyed and enraged Andy. 

“Don’t worry about it,” she says in the hopes of calming the other woman down. “Booker and I will handle the clean-up. You guys go put some dry clothes on.” They’re not going to be putting dry clothes, at least not for a few hours but better to get them out of the way so she can assess the damage.

Quynh and Joe don’t need any more prompting than that, shuffling their respective lovers to their bedrooms. Nile takes a seat at the dining table and contemplates whether she should just stay in hotel for the evening. Just one evening with a working toilet and warm water for the shower.

“Go get changed,” she says gesturing to Bookers wet clothes. He’s watching her anxiously, probably expecting another lecture. And while she is sorely tempted she figures Andy’s was enough. She’ll definitely pay him and Nicky back though because she’s sure this all started because of some competition between the two of them.

“Are we going somewhere?”

“We need to go get a pump to remove the standing water from the kitchen and pick up dinner from somewhere since the kitchen is currently unusable.” She sighs– _for a third time_ heavily in annoyance. Being back in Africa makes her miss her mother’s cooking so she had been planning to make beef stew for dinner. Not anymore. “Plus given they way Quynh and Joe were eyeing Andy and Nicky I would rather not be in the house for a round of who can make their lover scream the loudest.”

Booker coughs and looks warily at the hallway Nicky and Joe had walked through. 

“That’s a thing?”

“Yep,” she says holding out the p. “I think it was something they started when they first met and started traveling together. They haven’t done it in the last decade or so since you’ve been back but during your exile, after Quynh and Andy had reunited and the five of us were traveling together it was every few months for decades. Sometimes I would sleep outside just to get some peace.”

“Why’d they stop?” 

“A few months before you came back, I went up to the roof of the cottage we were staying in, fell off the roof in my sleep and died.” Booker winces and rubs delicately at the nape of her neck in comfort. “It was actually pretty bad and I was shaken up over it. They felt awful, of course, and I set up some new ground rules; once a year, during the daylight hours so I could leave the house if I chose, and never during missions. They also took a 10 year moratorium as punishment. It’s been 15 years, I’m actually surprised they lasted this long.” 

The first soft hitched moan from Quynh and Andy’s room prompts them into action. Booker shuffles upstairs to their lofted bedroom to change, while Nile grabs Nicky’s work boots sitting by the back door so she can quickly put away the perishables. They meet up outside a few minutes later.

Booker’s hair is still wet but he looks less like a drowned rat and more like a handsome farmer in his dark wash denim, work boots, and cotton button-down, forearms exposed on account of the heat. Maybe she’ll find a place they can pull over and make out in the backseat for a little. They haven’t done that in a while and there’s a patch of road on their way to town where you can see the ocean through the hills.

**Author's Note:**

>  **Notes:**
> 
> "...Мудак..." = insult that means testicle in Russian


End file.
